Sokisoy

I think in a way, we all fear change and when it comes about unexpectedly, we almost have a pessimistic reaction, at least I know I do.

I have a bad habit of become complacent and perhaps that’s a lazy nature in me. I want to strive for bigger and better things.

So rather than wait till New Years to make a resolution, I’m going to take these few months to put into plan my resolve to become a better person.

I’ll try to use this journal here as a way to document my journey and hold myself accountable.

Some things I’ve been trying is organizing and tracking my projects and goals. I’ve been utilizing a bullet journal for the past few months mostly to keep track of my life and I’m going to use it to plan and track my goals and progress. I’ll talk more about that later.

Aside from reading more self help books, I’ll try to put things into action.

Time is something I feel I waste the most of… I’m definitely realizing that now and it’s something I wish I learned when I was younger.

I’m really going to try to start writing here more often. I know I say that A LOT, but forreal realz!

. . .

I do find myself struggling to take a moment to create or express myself. I think that’s the struggle of trying to be a creator and a consumer at the same time. With any type of fandom, anime, comics, video games, etc, we draw our inspirations from said media and when we try to put forward our own ideas, stories, or impression, I find it easier to just consume than to create my own content.

Maybe it’s just an excuse I’ve clutched to. I don’t have time. Add work, commute, and fatherhood, and that excuse almost seems valid.

I’ve found myself saying this over and over, every new years resolution, (chinese new year resolution, YEAH, second change… and now Thai New Years resolution, third time the charge) I’ll start to do something.

This conversation with myself reminds me in college, after a night of drunken debauchery, I find myself telling myself I won’t drink ever again.

Same Shit, Different Day…

So what’s the real reason I don’t do anything creative anymore?

Time?

There is always time, I just need to better manage it. I was speaking to a friend, Matt, who seems more of a mentor really, who publishes and draws comics, has an excellent career with education and art, and also is one of the founders of DC Conspiracy, and is an awesome father. He was telling me how little time he has, but found a way to do so much more, and was questioning what was he doing with his time when he was younger, before kids, before marriage, before his career.

I know I need to manage my time better and using time as an excuse is pathetic. Honestly, I don’t even have my son during the week. He’s with my mother since both my wife and I work.

Sure, I have an hour commute, but I also have scheduled an hour lunch break so I can workout, illustrate, or write. My hour commute can be used to listen to podcasts to try to learn and get motivated. Time can be managed and put to better use. I shouldn’t use time as an excuse.

Failure?

What could I determine as a failure? No one liking my work? Everyone hating my work? While those are valid possibilities, almost every success story I heard afterwards was, “I did what I did because of passion” followed with “Those who create or do whatever it is they do for popularity, burn out”. While we all dream to be successful and love, if that’s our only goal, it most likely will never happen. People seem to be attracted to passion and that passion is what keeps us going through the set backs. If success is my only goal, once I hit a road block or fall down, doesn’t that mean I’ve failed.

As quoted in Batman Begins, “Why do people fall Bruce? It’s so that we can learn to get back up”.

We need some sort of motivation, passion, burning desire, to get us through those rough spots. No one every became success without experiencing failure.

And speaking of failure, never starting or seeing it through, is failing before we really started.

Becoming a father?

This has been the BEST thing to ever happen. Having a child in a way is a new start. I want to show him that he can do ANYTHING, if he has a passion for it. When I was growing up, people always told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, but then I was also told that “Artists only became rich after they died.” I don’t want to instill that lesson to my son but I want him to know that he can become anything he wants to be, but he will have to work for it.

If anything, this has been more of a motivational point in my life.

What if I never make it?

When I have that thought, I think to myself, “What if I slip on a bar of soap and break my neck in the shower?” Welp, that would suck, but I also never know if I don’t try. And it’s not always about the destination, but about the journey.

Life is rather short and if I commit myself to my passion, even if it’s ridiculed and hated, at least I did something.

I know I’m writing this more for my sake, but if you’re reading this, whoever you are, keep motivated and keep moving

I don’t update this often because of lack of time. But that’s a crutch. I’ve been wasting a majority of my time with Fallout 4. Sorry, not sorry.

Before the end of last year, I participated in Artomatic 2015 in New Carrolton, Maryland which was a great opportunity. Also survived my first year as a father, but I’m appreciative of my parents watching him during the week while my wife and I work.

Starting 2016, my parents traveled overseas and I took off 2 weeks to watch my son. I’m about half way through my ordeal as a stay-at-home dad and my wife kept telling me that I’ll regret it.

It has been challenging but I’m enjoying it more than I’d like to admit. I also appreciate my job and I do want to go back to work but I love spending time with my boy even more. Diaper changes are nothing, but getting to nap so he doesn’t have a temper tantrum is the real challenge.

As I type this, my I have to distract my son with other toys.

This time off and change of pace makes me reevaluate my artistic side also. I still do my First Time Parents comic, but at a slower pace and mostly for Magic Bullet, but I’ll defiantly try to post more.

Oh God, he got his hand on a pen. I should really take that away from him….

Last SquareEnix game I played was Murdered: Soul Suspect and honestly, I’m glad I got that on sale rather than full price… but the story was decent. The game play was interesting at first but did get tiring afterwards and by the end of Soul Suspect, I felt let down and probably would have been if I paid full price.

As I play Life is Strange, I’m reminded of Soul Suspect in a way. The story for Soul Suspect was “haunting” and it lured me in, the same way Life is Strange is doing, but I think the main difference is the type of game place and I guess if Soul Suspect tried to be more of a Point and Click rather than a pseudo action/adventure game (which it totally is not) I think it might have done better. But I digress, I’m supposed to be talking about Life is Strange.

Life is Strange is very strange… yes it is.

At the time of writing this, only 4 episodes is out with one more around the corner. As I played through the game, my wife and sister-in-law asked if I was living out my dream of being an artsy hipster teenage girl. But little do they know, she’s a time machine.

The story is about a young girl who is aspiring to be a photographer and is in a fancy private art school, who realizes she has the power to control time. While coming to term with this, there is several mysteries going about the town of Arcadia Bay, along with a pending storm, a missing girl, and a psychotic rich boy.

I’ll be honest, I abused my time travel powers to make my best friend shoot herself in the stomach over and over, scratching time like a turn table.

The execution of the game is perfect and in the beginning I found myself rewinding time, just to try to hear each and every different conversation options but by the third game, I found myself so engrossed in the story that I probably missed a bunch of stuff, but that’s okay, because unlike most point and click, I think this will have a pretty good replay value. Each choice you make can effect different aspects of the story, some major and some minor. I did find myself pondering on which choices I should stick with but honestly, I think I’ll just have one play through where I’m super nice and the second play through, I’m a super bitch.

The art style of the game is also amazing. Being an ex-professional photographer, I appreciate the level of detail in the conversations of photography and it does make me want to take up my camera again and just shoot. Not only that, since it takes place in an art school, you have a few illustrators also going around. If they release an art book for this game, I’ll probably try to pick it up.

The sound track for this game is also amazing. It defiantly helps fit the mood and seems to be a lot of acoustic guitars. Sorry, I’m not great at analyzing music.

Overall, I defiantly would suggest this and I’m surprised this wasn’t released by Tell Tale studios.

So it’s been almost a year since my son was born… His first birthday will is about a month and a half away and it feels just like yesterday he was just born. Looking back at all the pictures my wife and I took of him, I can’t believe how fast he’s grown. I remember after the second month, how we were putting away his 1 month clothes away and Qiao was crying because he was getting so big. But as fast as time flies, I can’t remember life before him.

Being a geek and a new father, I was curious if I would still have time for all my nerd hobbies, or would I have to give them up? I remember pondering on buying tbe PS4 and wondering if I would have time? About 3 months after he was born, I decided to anyway, (also about the same time AFTER my paternal leave was exhausted so I was going back to work… but I didn’t take off two months to just sit and play video games, contrary to popular belief)

Prior to becoming a father, I thought this small child would exhaust all of my free time, and while a majority of it has, I still take time to relax and enjoy myself. It does help that during the work week, my mother either comes over to babysit or takes him to her place for the week… so there is that.

I was talking to a friend who has been a father a lot longer than I, and he was stating how his time has become rather valuable but he tends to make the best out of it, still enjoying his hobbies, drawing comics, and being a full time father. He said that he’s just become a lot more efficient and more productive while at the same time having far less time than he did when he was younger. He doesn’t know how he does it, but he gets what he needs done, while still enjoying the things he does.

Parenting is hard work, and my son is a priority over my hobbies, that’s for certain, but becoming a parent didn’t mean that I had to give up what I enjoy… and I may have to cut back a bit, but hopefully when he’s older, I’ll have someone to enjoy it with… mainly cause my wife thinks my nerd hobbies are stupid….